Well, I’ve taken enough vacation time from making videos online. Time to get back to work on making videos.

Yesterday morning I finally managed to film my Top 5 Best Movies of 2016 video for my Blackcatloner Reviews show and I was originally going to upload it yesterday at the library but my editing software was acting pretty slow. Guess it only works when I’m not near a Wi-Fi source. So I ended up uploading it today on lunch at work.

In case you are curious as to what video editing software I use, I use VideoPad Video Editor and I have been using it since 2012 when I returned to video making after my Great Hiatus. And here’s where I let you in on some of my production secrets, such as how long it takes me to produce a video. As far as how long it takes me to produce a normal video, it usually depends on how long the video is and since the finished reviews are usually between five and twenty minutes long on average, it takes me anywhere from two to four hours to edit an average video. Again, it depends on the length of the video. Since I learned the fine art of editing during my time at Herkimer College, I have started shooting all my normal videos (where I’m sitting in front of my laptop) all in one take, flubs and all. And then it takes about two to four hours to edit the video down to its final length. And once again, depending on how long the video is, it normally takes anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours to render it for upload to the Internet.

And as far as uploading to YouTube goes, since I have to rely on public Wi-Fi because I don’t have Internet at my house, how long it takes to upload depends on where I am. When I uploaded up at the college, uploads were almost instantaneous (usually about five minutes or so.) During my post-college career, I usually upload videos during my lunch breaks at work and there it usually takes anywhere from five to twenty minutes to upload one video. However, uploading videos at the library is a little trickier because sometimes uploading longer videos takes forever. So that’s why I usually try to upload shorter videos (meaning videos that are either less than ten minutes long or smaller file size like my recent podcasts) when I’m at the library because they don’t take very long to upload. I usually try to avoid uploading videos to YouTube when I’m at McDonald’s or Burger King because uploads usually take forever.

So that’s pretty much a behind-the-scenes look at how I make my videos and post them online. Like I said, I’ve taken enough time off from videos. Time to get back in the habit because not only do I have more reviews I want to do as well as some more video ideas. At first, I was planning to replace the vlog series with the podcasts but as usual, I am having second thoughts. I mean, hey, it’s my show. It’s my YouTube channel. I do what I want. So I’m gonna be bringing the vlog series back and the podcasts will also be considered part of the series as well.

Right now, my biggest obstacle and this has always plagued me during my Internet career has been my lack of consistency, many of which can’t be helped because you know… life. Sometimes it saps your creativity and it leaves you kind of lethargic and drained. Plus, scheduling time to do videos is a bit of a challenge because I have Tuesdays and Saturdays off from work. And I guess that’s part of the reason why I started writing blogs again: To basically get my thoughts out there when I don’t have time to do a video or if it’s something that I can’t do a video on because also living in a town where nothing remotely exciting happens is a bit of a challenge to do videos on.

Also, the weather isn’t really helping things any. So far, we’ve had more snow this year than last year but the weather still hasn’t decided what it wants to do. One day it’s fifty degrees out. Another day it’s snowing. Right now, we’re under a lake effect snow warning and it hasn’t really done anything. Some flurries here and there and it was also windy as hell out but other than that, no real blizzards yet. But sometime this week, walking to work is going to be interesting, not that I haven’t walked to and from work in worse weather than this, especially during those long years on overnights. I’ve walked to work in blizzards. I’ve walked to and from work in twenty below zero weather. I’ve even walked to and from work in flood conditions. If anyone can handle that, they can handle anything.

I spent the last week trying to add updates to my laptop which I have been trying to do for the last couple months now and not much has been going on. Of course as of yesterday, Donald Trump has now made it official and I did manage to see him take the oath before I went back to work. Even though both TV’s in the breakroom were showing the inauguration, I was watching it on live streaming on YouTube while trying to upload one of my older videos to Vidme without much success.

But then again, I’m not posting this to talk about Donald Trump becoming president. Instead as I sit here in the library, I figure I’d elaborate on this year being yet another milestone year for me. Like I said, I’m supposed to get my degree in Communication Arts New Media from Herkimer College in the mail sometime within the next couple of weeks which marks the end of almost a year and a half of waiting not to mention four and a half years of actually going to college. And who knows where I’ll be after that. But all I can say is that hopefully things will really start picking up for me.

And on top of that, the fact that I am graduating from Herkimer College this year also coincides with the fact that it has been nearly twenty years since I graduated from Red Hook High School. In fact, even as I write this there are plans for a twenty-year reunion to which I have been added to the group page on Facebook. At press time, they’re aiming for late July. So far I have not committed to anything yet but we’ll see. I do remember one of the early posts I made when I first started up my main website (which I’ll get to in a minute because that is also celebrating a milestone this year) was about the fact that I was dreading returning for my ten-year reunion because let’s face it, I haven’t really changed all that much since high school except for the location and we’ll just leave it at that. But as far as the twenty-year reunion goes, I’ll just have to plan it by year.

In the meantime, my main website is also celebrating its ten-year anniversary this year. Last year I celebrated ten years as an Internet blogger and a presence in social media and next year, I will be celebrating ten years as a YouTube video maker. It all goes by so fast. And speaking of which, I have been toying with some new ideas for upcoming videos and I may just focus on reviews and I might do a podcast every now and then. What it all boils down to is that I am thankful to the Internet for continuing to allow people like me to have a platform to express my creativity that would have otherwise gone to waste in the real world.

But no matter what happens, it looks like 2017 is gonna be a pretty interesting year.

I just got done making some extra additions to the site. You will notice that in the menu I have added a few new links. One is to my Vidme channel; another is to my podcast channel on Podcasts.com. And earlier in the month, I created two new blog sites on Blogger. Well one of those is sort of new. I am in the process of moving my Blackcatloner Reviews site over to Blogger. In the meantime, I have posted three new movie review posts that I haven’t posted on the existing WordPress site. The other Blogger site is a personal blog called One Lone Cat and it is about my day-to-day life.

Also in addition to taking some time off from video making during the holidays, I also took time off to start up the podcast. I also have some good news on that front. The first two episodes of the podcast as well as the audio version of the Rocky Retrospective are available for free download on iTunes.

One of the big holiday traditions that has emerged in recent years has been the fact that people announce their engagements usually on Christmas by way of Facebook. In fact, nowadays you can carry out whole relationships via Facebook or any other social media platforms to the point where it has become commonplace.

This year, I might have had at least three online friends (and quite possibly more) announce their engagements online over the holidays. However, I am happy to report that I was not one of them. In fact, I stumbled across a meme that became popular and had been widely distributed and it was a text image designed to look like a Facebook status that says “Did not get engaged.” And of course, the date underneath was December 25 and below that, there is a little caption that says “See nonexistent relationship here.” I thought it was a good meme that I decided to not only share it online but also download it and use it for the purpose of this post. And there’s a good bet that I will be posting it again next Christmas.

Prior to becoming part of the Internet, I had not had any luck with women and it carried on even after I joined the online community. I have met quite a bit of people online in the ten years I have been on the Internet. Out of the numerous people I met online, I only met a handful of people offline. A couple of them even sent me Christmas cards. However, nothing really happened as far as anything long-term goes. The last time I was actually interested in a woman was back in 2011 and as you can guess, that didn’t go anywhere.

And now that I’m inching closer to 40, I am starting to think back on how I was back in high school and my twenties and that while high school and 20-something me would not be thrilled with the prospect of not getting married and having a family, soon-to-be 39-year-old me says that it’s for the best. After all, things have gotten bad in the dating scene with people relying on Tinder and it’s quite obvious that they’re not looking for long-term relationships not to mention that the pickin’s are very slim and a very high divorce rate. It’s all a game where the only way to win is not to play. For the most part, I’ve opted out. And trust me, I’m not really losing sleep over it anymore.

So in short, all I gotta say as far as whether or not you’ll see my Facebook status say “Got engaged” next Christmas is “Don’t hold your breath.”